I always wonder how people can create one comic page a week in full colour. Some people don`t have a buffer and manage to do it, some people have a buffer and manage to not let it run empty, they still do one or several pages in a short time and have a filled buffer of pages.

How long (average) does it take you to make one page?

What makes you able to work fast and be able to post pages on the web in a regular way (I`m not talking about having a buffer here, but on how you manage to create in a steady pace) How do you keep yourself from drowning in unnecessary details and what techniques do you have to make the process easier or faster?

Let us know your secrets!

Are you asking how people keep up the pace in COLOR, or just how people keep on track in general?

For the past 6 years I've been making pages at around 6 hours a piece. I can't seem to shorten this time, though I try. I just seem to get BETTER at making pages in that same amount of time! XD Lately it's become harder to track because I've been working on several pages in one go. I'll do the sketching for several pages, then go through and do the lineart for them, and then the graytones. I don't work in color but my friend/partner Em does. She produces one color page a week and it boggles me. I know we both use a particular procedure for our pages, which helps a lot, and makes them a little more consistent.

Part of the reason I've been going from page to page instead of completing each page in turn lately is because some days I can't seem to sit still. Those days I either do the rough sketching, work ahead with thumbnails, or do background gray-sketches. Some days I honestly can't keep my hand still enough to do lineart, or my mind is just to restless to concentrate. *shrugs*

Advice? Try and work out a system that you approach each page, even if it's more of a guideline in your head. Also, while you're working on rendering pages, try to also work ahead with thumbnails/layouts of future pages, and with the story more than a chapter ahead. (I know some people are working with fixed-length stories, so HOPEFULLY you've alreayd got the whole thing outlined, at the least! haha!)

I'm kind of with Plotholetsi on this. I tend to work 3-5 pages at a time, and just go through them all step by step. five sketches, then five final drafts, five pages of lineart, shading, colour, post process, etc. I tried doing everything one page at a time and just got burnt out too quickly. Took a friend's advice on the "assembly line" set up and it worked out great. (She does hers by entire chapters; I just don't have that kind of patience.)

I've been doing 22 pages in 6 weeks, full color... but my trick is to draw them all in one go, then do all inks, all flats, all colors, etc. I can't really say how long it takes to do a single page. I figure it's less than a page a day, in the end?

I would be way slower if I were to do a page at a time, I know that much. Being able to flat 20 pages in a few evenings of TV (just running the flatting filters and then using my saved swatches and the paint bucket) helps me zoom through the coloring stage.

Depends on the page- but each page is about 2 to 3 hours tops. I can do 5 to 12 a week, depending on what other jobs I have going on.

trav

I haven't kept track off how long it takes to do everything but here goes.
I'd say coming up with the basic composition of each page is about a half hour, I'm just toying about with what's going to happen on the page from the script and how it will read visually, I may do revisions if it's not as good as I want it to be. The penciling is about an hour and half to two hours depending on my mood.
Photoshop work though, is about two to three hours per panel. I try finish one each day, and keep the number of panels to seven at most per page. That why I can work on a panel each day and upload by either late Friday or early Saturday.

Color without lines and shading is something that probably takes more time than it should, but I feel it is worth it in the end for certain projects.

I don't finish a page a week. The fastest I work is when I work scene by scene, that is prepare the layouts for the whole scene, pencil all the pages completely, ink them then color them as a batch. I still could not take less than 2 full days of work on a page, with my current style and rendering.

If I wanted to finish them quicker, the first thing I would do is cut down the number of panels per page. If you look at mainstream American comics, they have a ridiculously low number of panels per page and per issue, that helps them churn out issues so fast. To a lesser extent I try to have less panels now, not to quicken the process but just so the pages breathe better. The reason I don't go all-out with this is that I'm working for print, and the finished chapter needs to fit a 48-pages book, no matter what. I can't add pages because it would cost more to print and I would have to raise the price of the book, which is out of the question – all volumes in the series must be even;y priced. So you see the very final end is taken into account at drafting stage.

I could probably simplify my coloring steps to save even more time. But I lost interest in doing that after a conversation I had in Algeria. I was sitting with a French writer whose work I love. On one of the series he writes, he's teamed up with Gazzotti, my greatest comic inspiration. We were chatting with an Algerian colleague and at one point he asked me how much time it took me to finish a page. I said if I worked on it full-time, it might take 3-4 entire days. I thought that was a long time. But he said "Oh! That's quick then. Gazzotti sometimes spent weeks on a single page."
That was a hard realization for me, of why his work is the way it is and mine is struggling to rise. That snuffed any desire I had to work quicker.

I'm not saying here that a comic isn't worth anything if each page doesn't take weeks of work. What I believe is that taking the time you need for your own style to be at its best is vastly more important than to seek to make a weekly deadline.

plotholetsi: I meant in general really. I was curious if there are very major differences in how fast people work and what techniques they use.

portheiusJ: I think I spend the same amount of time on a page as you do. Colouring takes the most work for me too.

Cedarseed: you wouldn`t have been talking to Fabien Vehlmann would you? I love his work on the `Seuls` series he does with Gazotti!
Wow, it`s eye opening to hear that even Gazotti spends so long on a page. His work seems so spot on and spontaneous. But of course, work that good must have taken a lot blood sweat and tears to make. Thanks for sharing!

the rest: I can see how working on several pages can be time saving. That`s great advice!

I tend to work at one page at the time, I`m fast at drawing and inking but lately I`ve tried a lot of perspective and that takes a bit more time now, but it`s definitely worth it. I think it takes me a day to sketch and ink a page. The colouring takes several days though, I think that`s what`s keeping me from keeping a steady pace in creating. I have holidays now so I can actually work on a page for a whole day. But with work and other appointments the colouring has to be split in shorter times and it`ll take me a month. I figured that I want to have a steady buffer, but at this pace I can only start to think about going online in about 5 years or something... I`ll try working at more than one page, it might just help me work in a steady pace.

YES!! Didn't want to namedrop too much, but yes, I love him, he's a great guy and sooo funny, I was so happy to befriend him. If you read French, he has an excellent blog.

I can't seem to get faster than a page a week and I don't even do color! But I'm probably only spending about 8 hours on a page. Down from probably 12-15 when I first started so I have at least gotten faster. My problem is more about fitting the work into my schedule. I'm always looking for ways to speed up and optimize my process though.

I work similar to how some describe their process here. I generally work on most of my thumbnails at once and then most of my sketches at the same time for an entire chapter. Then I move on to all the final pencils (inks) for that chapter. Then after that I work on all the coloring at the same time. It makes it really hard to judge my time but I could try.

For each spread:

Thumbnails - 1 to 10 minutes.
Pencils - 10 to 60 minutes.
Finished drawings - 1 to 4 hours
Coloring - 1 to 6 hours.

So I guess the whole process could range from 2 hours to over 11 hours. haha

I find the most effective time for me to work on reMIND art is early in the morning before I start work. If I can put in an hour a day drawing then I get lots accomplished. Then when I switch to coloring I need to work at nights for some reason since I need to focus for longer periods of time.

Great thread! Really enjoyed reading everything so far.

I don't have a buffer :/ Big mistake that is too late to fix.
When I started working on Stupid Snake, my current project, it took me about two months to finish the first 8 pages. Two whole months, and I don't even like the drawings on those pages! What a waste of time. But that's beginnings for you - it takes time to figure stuff out. I've never used Manga Studio before and this project is unlike anything I've ever done before - so no wonder, really.
Recently I found out that I can start and finish a whole page in a day. But then it occurred to me that I can't really do anything else other than that one page for the rest of the day because it eats up my entire time. So if I'm busy with other stuff I'll do about 3-4 pages a week, if not then maybe 6-7 pages. I try to draw every single day and have at least half a page done per day. Well, today I didn't do anything... unfortunately. But that's rare (no joke - rest is for the weak!).
I don't color so that speeds things up. I draw the whole thing digitally, that saves a lot of time as well (which is why I chose to work like this in the first place).
I work on one page at a time, so I also thumbnail only one page in advance. It usually takes very little time - a couple of minutes. Or less. It's not because I'm good at it... it's just that I really really hate it. I always try to get it over with as quickly as possible. Maybe some day I'll learn to have more fun with layouts.
It takes me about 6 hours to finish a whole page. I try not to take more than two days on a single page, but that doesn't always work out.
I have entire chapters written in advance, so that's never a problem. I can easily write several pages a day (when I'm inspired) so I don't even worry about it.

I'm taking 1 to 2 hours per comic, but I'm doing mine vector instead of the beautiful hand-wrought stuff you guys are doing.

I'm drawing too, but I'm reusing a lot of my assets.

Also, my pages are typically only 2-5 panels max... so that's faster too... but I update 5 times a week, so I can still keep the story moving.

I tend to work on several pages, between nine and ten usually, or more at the same time. Sometimes it's more. If something isn't working, then I go to another page and come back. I also work on a page, work on others, and come back, because that helps me see mistakes.

I tend to work on difficult tasks early in the morning and mindless tasks in the evening.

I also made some very hard decisions because of the issue of speed. I realized early on that I wasn't going to be able to do color and crank out pages. So no color.

Early on I was trying to do Athra with paper and dip pens. A great deal of hatching and brushwork. It was awful, it was dull, it was lifeless, and it was taking forever. I started over and shortly began doing everything on the computer. I work fast and rough because it suits me and, more importantly, because it's faster. I tried drawing in very different styles and I could do it, but it took forever. So I tried something else.

If you're not able to produce pages fast enough, try something else. That was really crucial for me. I want Athra to be faster and I'll make it faster, but I had to try different approaches before I found something that would work.

I would add that little things matter. With the computer, I don't have to use a t-square to make the damn lines on the pages anymore. I just open a new file and it's all ready.

I would really suggest making hard decisions and choose a story that you can depict quickly. I hate cities. I hate drawing them. I love the woods and mountains and I can draw them. And I can draw them quickly. That worked out well for me. I wouldn't, and this is just me, even attempt to do a comic set in an urban setting because it would just take too much time. One of the reasons I've considered doing a graphic novel like Korr, I posted some sketches in the sketches section, is because I think I could do it quickly. I'd really suggest thinking about what you'll be drawing and how long it will take.

This is such a tough one to answer for me... I'm usually working on so many different parts of the book at any given time. Some days I'm plotting, some writing. Most days it's art in various stages of sketches/thumbnails, pencils, inks or colouring. And when you throw in final designs, lettering, and blogging/posting, it's all over the place. I just wish I had more time! If I had a full work day like I did for my design job, I'd finish a lot more pages than I currently do.

But seriously, for my normal freelance illustration work, I try to have a 5 hour limit. I've found that if I go over that, I tend to start overworking the art and it loses what's interesting about it. How does that translate to comics?

- Thumbnailing pages is pretty quick - 10 minutes tops for 10 pages.
- I try to pencil quickly as well. Finding reference material takes me longer usually... 30-60 minutes.
- Transferring pencils to board and tightening up drawing - one hour.
- Inking is probably the longest part of the process since it's getting more towards final art - 2 to 2.5 hours usually and I do spreads, so that's for 2 pages.
- Colouring is the same as above and is spreads... but usually about an hour.
- Lettering/design is all done at once for all the pages and is all over the place for time. Lettering is pretty quick - like an hour - design can be a couple of hours up to a couple of days.

So add that up and it's not too bad really. I'd say usually it works out to five to six hours maybe per page (for an absolute completely finished page). But that depends a lot on what's on the page. The simpler the page, the faster it is to do.

The other thing that I should add to my above post is that I tend to work quickly in general. I'm also used to working my design job where I've got anywhere from 5 to 10 jobs on my plate at any given time - and all at various stages, so balancing a bunch of different parts of the GN is my usual headspace. If I only worked on my GN, I could easily turn out a page a day. I tend to lump stuff together (I'm inking a dozen pages right now which works out to 7 spreads) so that they're consistent and look the same. I'll do the same with colouring. If I had the time, I would sit down and plow through the 7 spreads in probably 2-3 days for the inking and 1-2 days for the colouring. But since I don't, I'm trying to do at least a spread a week which is realistic for me. Seven weeks later and my story looks pretty good!

I definitely wouldn't advocate speed just for speed's sake. But I've always had a hard time with the certain comic artist's inability to turn out a consistent product. We got drilled in school to turn out work and eight years in to my professional career as a designer I've found it to be the same. A page a day sounds good sometimes! For me, breaking that time up over a full week means a couple of hours a couple of days a week for a full spread which works.

When I was updating 3 times a week, I was getting about 4-6 hours to finish a strip from rough thumbs to finishes.

Now that I'm doing once a week updates and started adding graytones, probably somewhere around 12 hours per a strip. Its funny, since I've started the fight scene portion of the current arc, when I go back to do dialogue only scenes it only takes me about 4-6 hours to finish. I guess drawing all that rubble helped me get quick in a hurry...

Anywhere from 6-8 hours, and that is from sketch to final colors and lettering.

I've developed a pretty fast way to flat.